Chapter 19

Distinguish between what motivated politicians to secede (South) or fight (North), and what motivated common Americans to fight in the Civil War.

1. The extension of slavery into western territories.2. Complaints about the unwillingness or inability of northern states to turn over fugitive slaves.3. Complaints that slaveowners couldn't take slaves into Washington, D.C. and free states for as long as they chose if they called them "sojourns."4. Tariffs. Finally, another factor that compelled many to fight was simple coercion. By 1863, both sides were drafting most of their soldiers into service and many were afraid they'd be shot if they were caught deserting. Even at the beginning of the war, though, the majority of soldiers on both sides probably weren't fighting mainly either for or against slavery. Most Confederates — including those memorialized on Austin's Capitol grounds statue — were fighting for their region and most in the Union were fighting for just that: union.

Explain why Abraham Lincoln supported using a constitutional amendment to preserve Southeastern slavery in 1861.

As late as August 1862, Lincoln wrote Horace Greeley: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it." The "Great Emancipator" didn't set out to be and assumed that the South would come to their senses and compromise. After all, they easily could've avoided war and kept their slaves. That's why Lincoln offered to back the amendment legalizing slavery where it already existed. Was he bluffing? Lincoln went far enough out on a limb that he would've been forced to go along with it

Summarize why Abraham Lincoln wanted to keep the South in the Union by force. Why didn't he (and the North) just let them go?

Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Union survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish." Today, those words are etched into the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. For Lincoln, there was no United States without the Southeast.

Explain why tariffs were a divisive issue between North and South in the 19th century. Evaluate their importance in causing the Civil War.

Import duties helped protect northern industry while hurting the exporting South, who only stood to suffer from retaliatory tariffs in Europe and artificially high prices on products at home. the South favored free trade and the North didn't

Identify how CSA VP Alexander Stephens described the Confederacy in his Cornerstone Speech. How did Stephens distinguish Confederate founders from the U.S. founders?

It was founded on the false premise that all men are created equal and that slavery eventually would (and should) die away. "This was an error." Conversely, the Confederacy said Stephens: "is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural condition.

Briefly describe the main points of this chapter, if you had to distill it down to two or three sentences.

Lincoln thought democracy was an experiment worth continuing and resolved to preserve it by keeping the South in the U.S. rather than going forward with a smaller country. Thus ensued what the North called the Civil War because it didn't recognize the CSA as a new country until 1863, and what the CSA called the Southern War for Independence. Had the CSA won, that's what we'd call it in history books, as well. The reverse was true of the American Revolution when the British failed to contain what they hoped would go down as a civic uprising.

1. Distinguish between and identify the immediate or proximate cause of the Civil War as opposed to the ultimate, root reasons for Southern secession. Define the term voluntary compact as used by South Carolina. What does the Constitution have to say about secession?

Secession was the immediate, proximate cause, states, the ultimate, fundamental cause was the South's reason for seceding in the first place: slavery. the Constitution said. Article I, Section 10 says that states cannot have armies or "enter into treaties, alliances, or confederations" (Clause 1),

Evaluate the argument that tension between the capitalist, industrializing North and agrarian, plantation South caused the Civil War. What are some limitations of this theory?

The anti-industrial agrarian movement had proponents in both regions, and many Southerners advocated industry. Contrary to popular stereotypes, nearly half of Northerners in the mid-19th century were farmers rather than businessmen, clerks or factory workers, and many of them were states' rights-leaning Democrats who opposed tariffs and national banks.

Evaluate and critique the states' rights interpretation as a primary means of explaining Southern secession. Why did the Democrats split - North and South - at their 1860 summer convention? Who, alone among the presidential candidates of 1860, wanted western territories to decide their own fate regarding slavery? How did states' rights figure into the Confederacy's Constitutional rationale for secession, if at all?

The only presidential candidate in 1860 that put a premium on states' rights was Stephen Douglas of Illinois since he favored free sovereignty in the territories that were about to become states, But Southern Democrats broke away in 1860 after Douglas refused to endorse a plank to their platform legalizing slavery outright in all territories, as ruled in Dred Scott, When the southern faction nominated Breckinridge as their candidate, he had no choice but to abandon his commitment to free sovereignty and, by extension, states' rights. The 1860 Democratic Convention provides a perfect litmus test for anyone questioning the Confederates' priorities on the eve of the Civil War. Not only is the states' rights theory malarkey, the very reason Southern Democrats broke away was their opposition to states' rights on the issue that mattered most to them: slavery. Tellingly, when the Confederacy wrote its own constitution, they didn't give their states the right to decide slavery on their own; the national government mandated that it be legal everywhere

Analyze and interpret the declarations of independence (or Cause of Secession) from the U.S. for South Carolina and Mississippi, the first two states to secede. What do they tell you about their priorities?

They sure did. States had too much power, insofar as northern states were defying the "General Government" by not complying with the Fugitive Slave Clause. Indeed, strengthening the Fugitive Slave Clause in 1850 was one of the strongest expressions of national power in American history up until then. It authorized the military and bounty hunters to run roughshod over unwilling Northerners, whose own appeals to state sovereignty fell on deaf ears. When it came to restrictions against harboring runaway slaves,

Analyze how the CSA defined itself in terms of currency, capital, flag, and historical interpretation. How did the CSA's constitution compare to the U.S. version? What was its stance on states' rights? How did the CSA hope to isolate New England?

t's telling that the CSA chose red, white, and blue for their flag and included Founders like George Washington on their money because they considered themselves the real America. In many ways they were. Their name, the Confederacy, evoked the United States' first government, the Confederation Congress that operated under the Articles of Confederation (1781-89). Southerners were at least the more traditional America whereas the Republicans represented an emerging sectional outlook. Slaves, also depicted on Confederate money, built much of early America and slaveholders founded America. Confederates understandably saw themselves as the rump state and the North as the new revolutionaries breaking away. Of course, rump states would normally be the ones operating within the established constitutional framework rather than committing treason against it. But for Confederate leaders, abolishing slavery would reverse the revolution of 1776 by denying property rights. After the Upper South seceded, the CSA hoped to coax Pennsylvania and New York into joining them, to isolate New England. New York considered secession, but only to start its own country called Tri-Insula (for Manhattan, Long Island, and Staten Island) that would continue to import cotton rather than to actually join the Confederacy.